The difference is clear

Gather round, gentle souls, and lend me your ears, as I relay the story of a great divide.......

There was a time.......not so very long ago.......when people could come together.......when they could work together towards a common goal.......when they could share ideas and often disagree and even engage in spirited but productive debate, the end result of which would be to pass laws and instigate actions that would ultimately make the country, and even the wider world, a better, freer and more just place for all who inhabit them.

Yea, there were indeed two opposing sides, and these sides each had their own set of principles and goals and ideals. But in the end the two sides could come together to do things like battle tyranny, overcome economic turmoil, spur innovation, create a dialogue with other nations, even reserve parcels of land as beacons of nature and respite for all creatures and forces of nature and the perpetual benefit of all citizens.

But then all at once came a great cataclysm! We stood in hushed awe as a retired second-rate movie actor stood up and said, “Government is the problem.” And he spoke of government’s real obligation being to enforce morality and decency. And he spoke out on behalf of those who proclaimed that AIDS was God’s punishment for the abomination of homosexuality. And he created the lasting, impenetrable illusion of economic prosperity.

And he was hailed as a hero throughout the free world.

And as a result, I contend, today the natural distinctions between the two opposing sides could not be any clearer. They are simply these:

The Democrats, in their present incarnation, have good ideas. They want to make sure all the people are well-fed, well-educated, and healthy. They want to maintain the freedoms we’ve had for 230+ years (okay, admittedly, some of us haven’t had them quite that long) while ensuring that all citizens pay their fair share, both financially and through active participation in the process of governing, so that this grand experiment in democracy can thrive and continue to lead the world in pursuing liberty and justice for all.

And these same Democrats prove with every opportunity that comes their way that they are completely, totally, hopelessly incompetent at bringing their ideas to fruition. No matter how large a majority they secure, no matter how much political power and influence they obtain, they manage, without fail, to honor some ironclad guarantee that their good ideas will never, ever evolve into the laws that govern our land. Never. Ever.

If their wonderful ideas to promote and pursue liberty and justice were an inflated balloon, and that balloon were located at the North Pole, and the only threat to that balloon was a pin, and that were located at the South Pole, then even if there were no means of transport and no natural forces that could ever possibly connect the pin and the balloon, the Democratic Party would move heaven and earth to ensure that our glorious balloon and our demonic pin would meet, somehow, somewhere, so that the balloon would have absolutely no chance, no possibility whatsoever, of remaining intact.

The Republicans, in their present incarnation, have horrible, destructive ideas. They want to manipulate all social, political and economic engines that drive the entire human race and all man-made, and even some natural, forces that make up the planet Earth and its myriad of ecosystems. They want to ensure a wholesale tyrannical conquest of our land and our rights, and complete eradication of all those lovely freedoms that have represented our national spirit lo these past 2 1/3 centuries, by a conspiracy of conscience-free aristocrats and demagogues whose only understanding of America is that the very rich should just keep getting that much richer and the rest should be forever beholden to them, and that freedom is whatever rich, white men say it is and can change at any time, without warning and without any dissent, according to the vicissitudes of their needs and desires, or merely according to their whims.

The Republicans want to cut taxes to the bare minimum, but only for those who already have so much money that they can buy and sell ordinary, hard-working people for their own amusement. They want to cut government to the point where its entire array of functions consists of: 1) making laws dictate by, and for the benefit of, those same obscenely wealthy individuals; 2) having the world’s most powerful military operation, in which young and hearty progeny of the ordinary hard-working people go all over the world enforcing the will of those same obscenely wealthy individuals; 3) collecting taxes from the ordinary, hard-working people to fund the aforementioned military operation; and 4) building roads and median strips.

And these same Republicans prove with every opportunity that comes their way that they are absolutely brilliant at bringing their ideas to fruition. By mercilessly bullying anyone who disagrees with them. By passing laws of communication and commerce that ensure that the nation’s airwaves are reserved almost entirely for those who agree with them and carry out their efforts to bully those who disagree with them. By launching obscenely expensive wars that make the world safe for no one and nothing but bring great financial and ideological benefit to themselves and their disciples. By deliberately interpreting the most sacred texts of the world’s dominant religions solely for their own benefit, when it’s clear by their actions that they only believe the words that appear in those texts to the extent that they can interpret them to their own benefit. By letting the spawn of Satan rule the entire nation and all of its allies with an iron fist for eight years while disingenuously giving him the title of “Vice President.”

They apply their ingenious methods every time, and in spite of the fact that so many people claim to see through their machinations and manipulations, these ingenious methods seem to work for them every time, no matter what.

And so there you have it. Polar opposites. A clear difference. Isn’t it good to know the two opposing sides aren’t identical after all?